Posts Tagged ‘The LOX’

For some, it doesn’t feel like the holidays until we see our pals John McClain, Kevin McCallister or Ralphie Parker. Episode 3 is our holiday special and its packed with classics from OutKast, Redman, Common, Lord Finesse, Big Pun, Nas, Screwball, The Roots, Mad Skillz, The Beatnuts and L.O.T.U.G., plus new music from The LOX, Snowgoons, Meyhem Lauren and Hus Kingpin & SmooVth. And what’s our show without a little banter? We each discuss/diss our favorite years in hip-hop as well as our guilty pleasures. Stay tuned, you don’t want to miss this show!

From all of us at Take It Personal, we truly thank you for the overwhelming support you’ve given us so far. We’re only a few shows in, but we will continue to deliver these every few weeks as long as you continue to listen. Episode 3 drops next week, but here is a brand new Sounds Like The 90s to hold you over. Happy holidays to all of you. Let’s hope ’17 is a lot kinder than 2016 has been to us. –Jason Gloss

A nice surprise from Styles’ The Diamond Life Project. Styles is in good form here, but it’s Alchemist who really makes this song special. He’s still capitalizing on the unconventional (and vaguely Madlibian) wave of inspiration that served him so well on Russian Roulette. Instead of sticking to the typical verse/chorus structure he guides Styles through an episodic coke rap journey in 3 acts, complete with smooth evolving beat changes and Sun Ra samples (which drives the Madlib comparison even further.) The song bears whiffs of prog aspirations and it could have easily become a Kanye’sque disaster, but it works because it never comes off like an artistic experiment. Alchemist gently stretches the comfort zone for both Styles and his audience, but he never shatters it for the sake of aesthetics. It still feels like a D-Block song, it’s just a little more imaginative in arrangement than most of their other work.

Kurupt once made an extremely underwhelming DMX diss titled Calling Out Names, let’s hope this new feature won’t be equally as entertaining. It’s been a minute since I blessed you with my unsolicited and unfavorable opinions. You don’t have to agree, you don’t even have to read them but here they are…

1. Blu – Stop with the queer videos and these half-ass lo-fi tracks. Either make a real album, with real music and release it properly or just step the fuck off the internet. You’re becoming more and more irrelevant the more Fashawn drops heat rocks. You know Fashawn, the new Blu with some street appeal? Basically, stop being an aloof sissy and put out music that you’re capable of. Ain’t none trying to hear or watch this bullshit. NONE! I say this with love too.

2. Wu-Massacre – A big LOL @ anyone buying this. I’ll admit, I was amped when the leaks came out earlier this year but this isn’t an album. It’s a gank move and you’re a fucking sucker if you drop your hard earned money on this shit. For starters the album lacks sequence, true collabos (see Criminology 2.5) and most importantly CHEMISTRY! The entire album was phoned in and if they were smart they would have made an EP out of this crap and done the album the right way, the RZA way. You stupid muthafuckas.

3. The LOX/Jadakiss – Yeah I heard “Slow Down” and you’re killing them, but all three of you are some hypocritical emotional queers. First you sign with Puff. Then you spend the next decade berating and threatening Puff. Now you’re back on his lap like Brett Hart is on Vince McMahons. Oh and Kiss, I know you ain’t made a “wack verse since the 90s” but you ain’t made a dope album in forever! If you’re gonna go the Bad Boy route in 2010 at least get your money right before you hit the airwaves.

4. Def Jam – Either release the new Roots album or just release The Roots. How many push backs must they get? And this is just a pre-warning but if Justin Bieber is ANYWHERE on this album I swear to god I will eBay my Def Jam University sweater.

5. Doing Nas remakes – It’s bad enough we’re not even checking for Nas these days but now all these newjacks are trying to redo Illmatic? No, bad idea. Leave that shit alone and get your own identity. No offense to some of the great talents out there like Elzhi, Freddie Gibbs or Fashawn but leave that Illmatic shit alone. It only reminds us about how shitty hip-hop really has been for the past 15 years when your best music features Illmatic productions re-written lyrics to the tracks.

6. Yelawolf – I’m a huge fan. He just signed to Interscope which only means one thing, either a 2013 record release or a 2013 contract release. Eminem collabo in 2011 though! And speaking of white emcees , just how fat is Sage Francis going to allow himself to get?

7. Brotha Lynch Hung’s Dinner & A Movie – This is the Chronic of horror core music. Yeah I said it!

8. Jay Electronica – Great rapper, great personality, great person. Having said that, if you don’t drop an album you’re going to be Saigon all over again. Remember Saigon? Yeah, never do we.

9. Joe Budden or Buddens – Why are you the most unlikable, annoying personality in hip-hop? It’s not jealousy. I think you’re actually a good lyricist but your voice in unlistenable after 2 minutes because all you seem to do is whine. You might have the sports references on lock, but you peaked. No way will you ever be anything more than a yenta talabenta. Stop whining. Stop with self-indulgent videos. Just stop.

10. Snoop Dogg – General question but after Doggystyle has ANYONE ever bought another Snoop Dogg album? Who even takes this clown serious?

People have been talking about Diddy and Mase reuniting ever since an online video surfaced in which the Harlem MC said he was coming from a meeting with the Bad Boy head honcho. But a different reunion might be going down between Diddy and one of his other acts.

“I would definitely love to do the next LOX album,” he told Mixtape Daily recently in Los Angeles. “I would love to collaborate with them. I think it’s important just to do. … I would look forward to it.”

Puff and the Warlocks together again? That would be big news for New York. The two factions were at odds for years before eventually patching things up. Jadakiss has openly discussed the possibilities in the past, but nothing has ever come out of it.

Now, with the Yonkers trio and Diddy both aligned under the Interscope umbrella, it sounds like things could be happening soon.

“We been talking about it,” Diddy revealed. “We have to sit down and have a real meeting about it.”

The ink on Diddy’s new deal for Bad Boy with Interscope is still drying, but he’s hard at work managing projects between the ‘Scope and Atlantic, where a handful of his artists, including Cassie and Day26, still reside.

Acquisitions were on Diddy’s mind, as he spoke about Raekwon’s previous comments about him trying to sign the Cuban Linx rapper and Ghostface. But Diddy has too much unfinished business to handle, not to mention putting the finishing touches on his next album, before he recruits anyone into the fold. So any future plans may have to wait.

“I’ve always been a fan of Raekwon and Ghostface and Wu-Tang,” Diddy explained. “To be honest, I don’t know what the future holds for Bad Boy/ Interscope. I wanna take it day by day and get acquainted. The first move now is to get out this Dirty Money album, The Last Train to Paris. We gonna focus on that. Cassie has a new single, we’re gonna focus on that. Day26, we still in business with Atlantic, we’re gonna see that all the way through. We still have some unfinished business we have to take care of before we get into the future.”

Categories

Archives

This 2-part Slug interview featured on our Atmosphere tribute show can now be heard in its entirety. We delve into a different side of Sean Daley. We talk Al Franken, ironically, a day before the allegations came out. We talk critics, family, touring, his relationship with ANT outside of the tour bus and studio. We […]